Hylton, Manne and Wright: The irony of the new approach is that it puts the new administration on a collision course with the law. The previous DOJ, whatever its shortcomings, reflected an honest effort to adopt an enforcement strategy that was likely to find success given the existing monopolization law developed independently by the courts. The new strategy, so far as one can tell, seeks to pressure the courts to change the law in order to meet the desires of the new administration. In the end, either the Antitrust Division will fail, or the courts will bend in a way that unsettles the law. But either way, this week’s events in Europe and the U.S. portend a tough road ahead for the world’s most successful companies. See here.

科斯：我被反垄断法烦透了

科斯（Ronald H. Coase）：“我被反垄断法烦透了。假如价格涨了，法官就说是‘垄断定价’；价格跌了，就说是‘掠夺定价’；价格不变，就说是‘勾结定价’”。(Ronald Coase said he had gotten tired of anti-trust because when the prices went up the judges said it was monopoly, when the prices went down they said it was predatory pricing, and when they stayed the same they said it was tacit collusion. — Source: William Landes, “The Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law and Econ at Chicago”, JLE (1981)) 详见这里和这里。

Becker: Financial Regulations

Gary Becker: The claim that the crisis was due to an insufficient level of regulation is not convincing. For example, commercial banks have been more regulated than most other financial institutions, yet commercial banks performed no better than other classes of financial institutions. At the other extreme, hedge funds have been the least regulated, and on the whole they did better than most others in the financial sector. One major problem with regulations is the regulators themselves. See here.

Why Bailouts and Stimulus Don’t Work

Benjamin Powell at Washington Times: America’s move to act swiftly and boldly misses the point. Bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus bills don’t work because they strive to maintain the status quo. But the status quo is the problem and exactly what needs to be corrected. The U.S. housing bubble drew too many workers and too much capital into construction and related industries. So funding public works projects to keep those companies in business is the wrong solution. See here. (HT: EconLog)